Make room in your music collection, this is one of 2025's best records

An album that’s immediately open-armed and inviting, the third solo collection from American singer Jenn Wasner wraps its serious subject matter inside music that aims to soothe. Her voice is endlessly appealing, and her way with harmony adds layers of hope to even the saddest songs.

Flock of Dimes began life as a side project. Wasner’s main gig was as half of Wye Oak, a band with considerably more volume, and more interest in (often atypical) rhythm. That makes sense: the other half of the band is drummer Andy Stack, and you can hear the creative alchemy.

Wasner wanted to “explore the more atmospheric side of pop” when she began Dimes in 2011, positioning it as the more experimental of her two outlets, but with time the reverse has proven to be true: The Life You Save is stripped back and simple, the kind of album that suggests she had something to say, and wanted to say it plainly.

As it turns out, that relates to a topic she’s spoken about in the past. Wasner’s parents have both struggled with addiction, and in the blurb for this album - the kind that says a lot while keeping details vague - she says she wanted to address that head on, as well as the impact it’s had on her life.

With that context a lot of things fall into place. Many lyrics imply her role as the first port of call for someone who’s struggling, as in ‘Theo’, when she sings “call on God, don’t call on me”. The following song ‘Instead of Calling’ initially feels like a continuation of that thought, but actually addresses a different character, with the devastating query “how much hurt would it take for you to let it go?”

Her parents aren’t specifically named in lyric or blurb (she just refers to “the cycles of addiction and co-dependency”), and her meaning expands beyond that to the record’s nub: that the idea she could save others from themselves is itself an act of hubris (laid out plainly with the line “I think I’m God, I know I’m not”).

With that knowledge, some of these tracks do emerge as achingly sad. The album’s second half in particular lowers in tone and tempo, but it’s preceded with moment after moment of warmth: the twinkling keyboard hook on ‘Close to Home’, triumphant, drum machine-assisted chorus of ‘Defeat’, or the reassuring acoustic swell which powers ‘Keep Me in the Dark’.

Wasner’s is a voice that emanates empathy. It draws you in close, and her songs, presented here with newfound clarity, are frequently gorgeous. The Life You Save begins with a mission statement of sorts: “I did not enter this world afraid, and I refuse to leave it this way”. The remainder presents truths that are similarly uncomfortable, but the music is anything but.

Good Woman by Michaela Tempers

Michaela Tempers’ singing voice - a rare, warbling instrument that will leave you grasping for comparisons - is the main conversation-starter here, but it should be noted how perfectly she deploys it on her first EP, feeling at home on electrified country tracks as well as hushed folk.

The songs are frequently fun, buoyed by rhythmic hustle (particularly the tropical elements on ‘Nothing To Lose’), and elsewhere, lovely layers of picked guitar and tape hiss (‘The Plane’). It’s generous for an EP (six tracks), and thoroughly satisfying, a range of moods carried through with very distinctive delivery.

My Name is David by Alphabethead

David Morrison’s output as Alphabethead is already extensive, so this album’s title suggests a new beginning. Sure enough, the turntablist, who began collecting records at 12 and won the NZ DMC DJ Championship when he was 18, has spoken about it as a rebirth, backgrounding vinyl sampling in favour of synthesis and sound design.

Results still sport the kind of booming beats he used to back Young Gho$t in their duo Bad Taste, but now they’re moulded and sculpted rather than sampled from vinyl. Accompanied by digital emulations of familiar instruments, bit-crunched computer game sounds, and an assortment of far-flung vocal samples, it’s a collection that runs from despair to triumph, and stays fun throughout.